My work applies a folkloric and historicist lens to medieval and early modern British literature and forward into popular culture.
My interests are in how the narratives of the folk are both read in and repressed by mainstream accounts.

Mascot for #DevilDiss

Mascot for #DevilDiss

Monday, January 5, 2015

Conference Hacks

This week is MLA so social media is full of tips for traveling to Vancouver and other conference hacks.
This got me thinking about conference prep in general.
I carry two bags when I travel- my leather briefcase and my leather bag. I don't check luggage to avoid any issues.

My carry-on is the perfect size- I can stuff it with 4-5 days of clothes, and it's never too heavy to lug across airports.

It's also part and parcel with my belief that you should have a professional persona from airport all the way through to the conference. So my travel wear is always my work wear (shirt-tie). Bonus? It often gets me in the lesser security line.
The shirts and ties also makes packing easy. I try to stick to a color scheme. I'm not interviewing, so it's jeans, although I'm taking a grey pair of slacks for Friday (jeans for travel Thursday and Saturday). Wear jeans and blue shirt/tie/vest on travel day. Grey tie/vest for Friday. Brown tie/vest for travel day.

Because Vancouver may be rainy or snowy I'm wearing brown dress boots
because they'll work regardless of weather. It's also why I'm taking my
military coat versus the wool pea coat, because it can double for rain
or snow.
I also splurged last year and bought a clear toiletries bag which makes it easy for airport security, and goes last on top of the packing.

I don't sleep well in hotels, so Duckie travels with me. Often to the amusement of TSA. And housekeeping (who always tuck him in when they remake the bed which I think is adorable!)

I travel with my Surface because it's lightweight. Unfortunately I have a Surface RT which does not consistently connect to a projector so if I'm presenting, and have a PowerPoint I need to take my clunky, heavy laptop. Luckily for MLA I'm just looking around so Surface it is.

As much as I love technology, I'm a bit old school with hard copies. Every conference I attend gets a folder.

The folder includes hardcopy print outs of registration, hotel and flight info. I also rough out what the schedule is (inside has a more specific conference schedule of panels to attend). Also, this is my first international travel so MLA badge and passport are in the folder. The folder ensures everything is in one spot, easy to find and reference.Despite loving Twitter have not mastered live-tweeting, and prefer to take handwritten notes in my binder during panels, so I like to have a new pad and a pen with plenty of ink. I also include extras of my business card, and Post-Its.

Each day of the conference, the handwritten notes get torn off and put into the conference folder.
A bonus of my Surface is the Kindle app, but I also carry at least a couple of hard copy books for a couple of reasons- I tend to use airport time to work, and all my work books are hard copy so I can highlight and make notes. Also, some airports still charge for wifi (which by the way is batshit crazy) and I rather read my book than pay for wifi.
So those are my conference hacks- what are yours?

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About Me

I am a PhD candidate in British and Irish Literary Studies
at the University of New Mexico. My research focuses on how folkloric
characters are represented in literature and popular culture,
specifically the devil.

I regularly write reviews and articles for Sequart Organization. My most recent scholarly work analyzes the function of the folkloric forest in Twin Peaks for an In Focus section of Cinema Journal (2016), the functional aesthetic of the Nightmare on Elm Street films in Style and Formin the Hollywood SlasherFilm (2015), and the creation of Elfego Baca as a folk hero in "Don't Just Print the Legend, Write It: The Odd Construction of Elf ego Baca as Folk Hero" for Western Folklore (2015).

Dissertation Project

The popular understanding of the devil is of a visually different Other who deceives, tempts, and seduces good men and women away from God’s divine authority. He is often portrayed as an adversary and individuals or groups associated with him, such as Jews, Moors, and unruly women, are marginalized and marked as a threat. Yet a longue duree analysis of the English devil from the Anglo-Normans to the Restoration reveals an innately political devil who threatens power structures and defines English nationalism through negation. William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum describes devilish leaders as the greatest threats to England’s stability, who must be defeated by great leaders. Þe Deulis Parlement constructs the democratic collective of Parliament and free speech as demonic. Both I Henry IV and Macbeth demonstrate the dangers of devilish leaders who rebel, challenging the divine authority of the monarchy. Each of these elements; devilish leaders, demonic parliament, and diabolic rebellion are presentand revised in Paradise Lost where Satan is the vehicle for this concerns about English nationalism after the Restoration.